Oryx and Crake

As the story opens, Snowman is sleeping in a tree, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

The Heart Goes Last: A Novel

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around - and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed, and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in...for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates.

The Robber Bride

Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride is inspired by "The Robber Bridegroom", a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one. But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of three friends.

The Handmaid's Tale

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now pictures because women are not allowed to read. She must pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, for in a time of declining birthrates her value lies in her fertility, and failure means exile to the dangerously polluted Colonies. Offred can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name....

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace.

Cat's Eye

Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal.

The Blind Assassin

With The Blind Assassin, Atwood proves once again that she is one of the most talented, daring, and exciting writers of the time. Like The Handmaid's Tale, this Book Prize-winner is destined to become a classic.

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus

In Homer's account in The Odyssey, Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy - is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for 20 years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan war after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumours, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca.

The Edible Woman

Marian is determined to be ordinary. She lays her head gently on the shoulder of her serious fiancé and quietly awaits marriage. But she didn't count on an inner rebellion that would rock her stable routine, and her digestion. Marriage a la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can't stomach ... The Edible Woman is a funny, engaging novel about emotional cannibalism, men and women, and desire to be consumed.

Hag-Seed

Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: Not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And brewing revenge.

Dark Matter: A Novel

"Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife: The Road to Nowhere, Book 1

When she fell asleep, the world was doomed. When she awoke, it was dead. In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth's population - killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant - the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power - and the strong who possess it.

The Windup Girl

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman.

The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2

This is the way the world ends, for the last time. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun - once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger - has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever. Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power - and her choices will break the world.

The Girl with All the Gifts

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius". Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

First published in 2001, American Gods became an instant classic, an intellectual and artistic benchmark from the multiple-award-winning master of innovative fiction, Neil Gaiman. Now discover the mystery and magic of American Gods in this 10th anniversary edition. Newly updated and expanded with the author's preferred text, this commemorative volume is a true celebration of a modern masterpiece by the one, the only, Neil Gaiman.

Ubik

Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business - deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in "half-life," a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time.

Ready Player One

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

Bloodchild and Other Stories

Six remarkable stories from a master of modern science fiction. Octavia E. Butler's classic "Bloodchild," winner of both the Nebula and Hugo awards, anchors this collection of incomparable stories and essays. "Bloodchild" is set on a distant planet where human children spend their lives preparing to become hosts for the offspring of the alien Tlic. Sometimes the procedure is harmless, but often it is not. Also included is the Hugo Award - winning "Speech Sounds," about a near future in which humans must adapt after an apocalyptic event robs them of their ability to speak.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Jason Taverner - world-famous talk show host and man-about-town - wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is - including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person's identity be erased overnight?

The Fifth Season: The Broken Earth, Book 1

This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great, red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Good Omens

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson is a blazing new force on the sci-fi scene. With the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, he has "vaulted onto the literary stage." It weaves virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility - in short, it is the gigathriller of the information age.

Parable of the Talents

Environmental devastation and economic chaos have turned America into a land of horrifying depravity. Assault, theft, sexual abuse, slavery, and murder are commonplace. And a zealous, bigoted tyrant has won his way into the White House. Directly opposed is Lauren Olamina, founder of Earthseed - a new faith that teaches "God Is Change". Persecuted for "heathen" beliefs as much as for having a black female leader, Earthseed's followers face a life-and-death struggle to preserve their vision.

Publisher's Summary

A man-made plague has swept the earth, but a small group survives, along with the green-eyed Crakers - a gentle species bio-engineered to replace humans.

Toby, onetime member of the Gods Gardeners and expert in mushrooms and bees, is still in love with street-smart Zeb, who has an interesting past. The Crakers' reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is hallucinating; Amanda is in shock from a Painballer attack; and Ivory Bill yearns for the provocative Swift Fox, who is flirting with Zeb. Meanwhile, giant Pigoons and malevolent Painballers threaten to attack.

Told with wit, dizzying imagination, and dark humour, Booker Prize-winning Margaret Atwood's unpredictable, chilling and hilarious MaddAddam takes us further into a challenging dystopian world and holds up a skewed mirror to our own possible future.

The narration just did not work for me. Zeb's character sounded like a corny Batman with bizzare haltering emphasis on the language. Toby's sounded like a cross between Laurie Anderson from Sharky's Day and Lisa Simpson. Tobys character also changed very inconsistently from being a staunch vegetarian to a pig killer. The male figures in the book often come across very 2 dimensional but the narration didn't help in that respect.

What did you like best about this story?

In contrast to most reviewers this was probably my favourite of the three books, the first being the least favourite.

Would you be willing to try another one of the narrators’s performances?

Having just listened to Oryx and Crake and The Year of The Flood I was thrilled to see that I wouldn't have to wait for the third book. Sadly, I am struggling with it. So far too much going over what happened in the first two books is tedious. But what is really spoiling it for me is the narration. I absolutely loved the narrator of Oryx and Crake, was slightly less enamoured of the narrator for the year of the flood, but the powers that be obviously decided it had to be a woman and I did get used to her voice. So far, in this book, the narrators aren't doing anything for me and I'm not sure if I will continue with the audio book, maybe it would be better to read it in print.

Would you be willing to try another book from Margaret Atwood? Why or why not?

I love Maraget Atwood' s books and have read a lot of them. She has beautiful turn of phrase and would thoroughly recommend them to anyone.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

I would have used the narrator of Oryx and Crane his voice is delicious, and the 'parts' really don't have to be gender narrated.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

E

Dublin, Ireland

10/22/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Good book, bad audiobook"

What did you like best about MaddAddam? What did you like least?

I have been looking forward to the final instalment of the MaddAddam trilogy since listening to the first two books in the series.Atwood's plausible (almost frighteningly close to probable) tale of the collapse of society was beautifully told in the audiobook versions of Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

Normally I don't write reviews, but in this case my enjoyment of the book was impacted so much by the production of the audiobook that I feel it's important to leave feedback.

For the first two books I understood the decision to use a male narrator for the book with a male protagonist and female for book with a female one. Neither narrator blew my socks off the way some narrators can, but it was still easy to listen to them tell the story and become lost in the book. The decision to not re-use one of those narrators was disappointing. The decision to use 3 entirely new narrators is puzzling.

I don't know if they rushed in order to launch the audiobook at the same time as the print version, but the quality is definitely not as high as the standard I expect from Audible. The two main narrators take charge several times each, broadly covering Toby and Zeb's voices. However the story doesn't provide clean division of labour for these roles, so often the narrator switches at an awkward time, and both narrators do double duty as both Toby and Zeb's voices which is a little strange. The fact that a third narrator is introduced for a single isolated chapter is even stranger.

I stopped listening several times during the first chapter as I really struggled with Bernadette Dunne's style, which sounded rushed (little things, like hearing a hesitation as she followed a sentence to the next line). I even went so far as to buy a print copy of the book, the only thing that stopped me was the price of the hardback being so high!

In the end I persevered, which I somewhat regret. I think I would have enjoyed reading this book myself much more than listening to this version. The production is adequate, but I don't think that's good enough.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

M

Wakefield, United Kingdom

10/12/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Inspiring."

The Maddaddam trilogy has been one of the audiobook highlights of my year: a wonderfully imaginative production of an amazing story. This is literary science-fiction at its best, and Margaret Atwood has used beautifully drawn characters, in a scarily plausible world, to explore such themes as the birth of religion, the consequences of science and our specie's place in the biosphere. Her writing is, as ever, rich with unexpected imagery and beauty, and she's always willing to go into the darkest places of our minds. An epic creation that I would thoroughly recommend to all. Cheers!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Maddy

10/29/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Weakest of the Trilogy but still Excellent"

I have really enjoyed listening to this, especially the first half, although I found the story flagging a little in the second and I thought the ending was flabby, especially for Atwood. There isn't the bite and development of plot in this volume that there is in the previous two but this is the post apocalyptic stage when there is by definition less drama. I didn't find the references back to the first 2 volumes at all repetitive; on the contrary I felt that the story was continuing to be built up in layers and it made me want to go back and listen to the first part again. There is so much in these novels of a future dystopia that speaks of our world now and the direction in which it is going and I find the whole trilogy very dark despite the humour. Atwood retains her inimitable style, use of language and imagery and gentle irony and humour which is always a pleasure to read or listen to.I thought the readers were very good and I liked the way in which they alternated, and the appearance of the third voice at the end. In particular they appreciated the dryness of the humour of the book and made the most of it and their pacing was excellent. Also their voices were easy to listen to, not always the case with those from across the pond. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

T

Leighton Buzzard, United Kingdom

9/4/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"intelligent, witty and a really good listen"

I love Margaret Attwood's dark humour and beautifully crafted writing. This final part of the trilogy started in "Oryx and Crake" (also an excellent listen) does not disappoint. Characters and situations in this post-apocalyptic near-future are further developed and explored, with biting satire. It's beautiful because it is simultaneously horrifying, poignant and very funny. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Jpixie

3/30/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Intricate, imaginative and illustrious"

I'm a big fan of this series, and Margaret Atwood didn't disappoint with this concluding part. This speculative world makes perfect sense, it is an apocalypse that could happen in our lifetime.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Spirit

Cornwall

5/16/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"perfection in speculative fiction"

Where does MaddAddam rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best I've listened to but it does form part of a trilogy so it would be best to read the previous two books first. Oryx and Crake and the The Year of the Flood.

What did you like best about this story?

Margaret Atwood does her "speculative"fiction perfectly. As with the Handmaid's Tale, the future is just around the corner and really makes you question where science, society, religion are going. A lot to think about but wrapped around a genuinely page turning read/listen

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favourite?

Toby and Blackbeard. The narrator on this young character was superb - the emotional impact was tear breaking. His voice doesn't appear until near the end but when it does it's heartbreaking.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Sometimes -sometimes I needed a break to digest it properly

Any additional comments?

If you want something that's a good read and will make you question the world we live in then i'd recommend this trilogy.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Patch

Staffordshire

5/11/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Well I made it to the end"

So book 1 - enjoyable and ended on a cliffhanger leaving me hungry for more. Book 2 did not pick up where 1 left off, but in a clever plot trick made its way to the same point via a different route, but was a bit impenetrable with weird singing, wasn't sure but hoped book 3 would regain the tone of book 1 and romp to the finish line. It didn't. The only thing that got me to the end was the excellent narration and characterisation, plus the desire to see if the denouement was worth the journey. I leave that for you to decide, but I was just glad it was over.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Sandor

banbury, oxon, United Kingdom

1/31/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Third in the trilogy"

Any additional comments?

There absolutely no point in reading this without having read 1 & 2 , so by now you know pretty much what to expect. The story finally comes to an end, it does go on a bit but if you've read the others you're pretty much hooked now so you have to know what happens.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Michelle

Rotherham, United Kingdom

1/18/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Powerful and sublime"

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would definitely recommend this audiobook to my friends and in fact already have. It's well read, on the whole, and is the perfect accompaniment to long drives, household chores, wandering round the shops or any other moment where physically reading a book is difficult. Words on a page are still my preference but I'm becoming an audiobook fan.

This particular book is beautifully written and provides excellent closure for the trilogy. I would recommend listening to the other books first but it isn't completely necessary; Atwood does a good job of recapping the most important information. I think you'd feel more connected to the characters and story if you did know them throughout the trilogy though.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Toby is my favourite character. Her strength, resolve, motherliness and integrity made her easy to admire and connect with. I also fell a little bit in love with Zeb which took me by surprise. Blackbeard would be another choice for favourite. What a sweetheart!

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I've not heard any of these narrators before. The other novels were narrated by different people and at first I found it hard to listen to the Toby and Zeb narrators, particularly Zeb but I persevered and it was worth it. I think the Zeb narrator is the weakest. His intonation is wrong in places and it annoys me but the quality of his voice, its gruffness and depth are in keeping with the characterisation.

Some reviewers felt it was unnecessary to have 3 narrative voices but I disagree. I like the mixture of the voices - it helped me to focus on the characterisation. Although the novel is written largely in 3rd person, there are definite Toby sections and definite Zeb sections which reflect their speech and thought patterns and language. Blackbeard's chapters definitely needed a youthful, inexperienced voice in contrast.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

This book moved me to both tears and laughter. At one particular point I was out. Doing my weekly shop and laughed out loud provoking stares from the other shoppers. Towards the end of the novel I found myself crying. Blackbeard's simple narration of events was heartbreaking.

Any additional comments?

MaddAddam offers a wonderful insight into what it means to be human and the nature of our relationships with each other and the world around us. Religion, society, the natural world and parenthood are just some of the themes Atwood explores in this beautifully poetic novel. It has left me with a lot of 'food for thought', if you'll excuse the cliché.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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